lunchtime segregation
I just don’t get it. I go to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch about three times a week. I love Carmen’s hoagies and Dinic’s sandwiches. I shop at Metropolitan Bakery and *L*O*V*E* Termini Brothers fine confectionary delights.
Today, being a very clear-headed day, I decided to look at the patterns and flow of people. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed this before but it jumped into view as I stood in line for some good cooking at Delilah’s Southern Cuisine. It became very clear that I was the only white person in line. Ten people - one white guy. I thought that a bit odd since the food is amazingly good. So I got my chopped chicken BBQ, black-eyed peas and rice, mac and cheese, and corn bread, and sat down to eat.
I sat in a position to watch the line. A half hour passed before one other white guy got in line. So a few dozen people passed through the line while I was watching and only 2 of them were white. How does that make sense? The food is awesome and the service was wonderful. I actually talked with people in line and had a great time.
So I got up from my table and walked around the market. Most places seemed to be racially diverse except for the southern places and the Italian places that seemed to be almost exclusively mono-racial.
I am not sure why, after all of these years of studying the issue of race, I am still amazed that racism is so strong and so ingrained in our way of life that segregation - even voluntary choice - still exists in such a stark and brazen incarnation. I felt like grabbing some of the white folk around me to evangelize the benefits of eating such amazing food. Heck, Oprah even called the mac and cheese the nation’s best.
Racism needs to die a swift death. Bias needs to be replaced with acceptance. Walls need to come down.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not talking about color blindness. I think we must embrace our diverse cultures and appreciate the great diversity of the human race. My personal philosophy is that we should learn to love the culture of others, understand it, experience it, enjoy it, and above all respect it.
I am proud of who I am and the path my ancestors took to get me here. I am not a wannabe anything. Except I wannabe me. Here’s my thing - respecting diversity is not about tacit lines of segregation that allow others to have their culture on their side of the line while we have ours here. Diversity should be a unifier - we should all be unafraid of crossing and blurring the lines that divide us so we can all live as one human family.
Too many people are invested in defining what is white, black, Asian or Latino and then building a wall to keep people in and others out. White folk should have no fear of eating at Delilah’s. Black folk should tuck in to the occasional Italian hoagie.
Beyond food and the other physical artifacts of culture, we need to cross other lines as well. Patterns of friendship, the places we live, the organizations we belong to, the fabric of our lives needs to be open.
I will be happy when the lines are open to everyone and no one feels the need to segregate their lunchtime.